The Milan Milk Bottling Plant

In the early 1900s, milk was transported to Milan from the farms on the city’s outskirts by the so-called “Menalatte”, who carried it in large tanks pulled by horses. However this system posed serious problems to hygiene and public health, due to the lack of food safety controls. For this reason, the Italian government promulgated a law on the matter in 1929 known as the “Carta del latte” (Milk Charter) and the Municipality of Milan decided to establish a milk bottling plant in the area between Via Castelbarco and Viale Toscana to centralize the processing and distribution of milk and dairy products. The milk bottling plant, owned by a joint-stock company set up specifically for the purpose, began its activity on 2 January 1930. It was a modern plant with cutting-edge pasteurization technology, where 500 employees and 40 truck drivers worked every day. After overcoming the initial distrust of consumers for pasteurized milk, the milk bottling plant had to face serious production disruptions during WWII. In 1950, the municipality of Milan decided to make it a city-owned enterprise. In 1957 the old plant was demolished, and a new factory was built in its place, as the municipal company kept growing, in part thanks to successful marketing campaigns and the continuous development of new products.  

Having become a very popular institution among the Milanese, the milk bottling plant was constantly visited by school children, who left donations of drawings that were displayed along the 120-meter perimeter wall of Via Castelbarco. The wall was also decorated by 28 mosaics created by young artists in 1998. The milk bottling plant was then privatized and sold to the Granarolo group, remaining in operation until 2006. After being restored thanks to the University’s intervention, the mosaics were placed along Via Bach in Ravizza Park near the Bocconi campus in 2022.